We've had a lovely two days. The highlight of Christmas Day was watching Amelia open her presents over Skype. The quality was patchy but the delight was all there and it was just so lovely. Amelia blew us kisses. She brought her gifts right up to the camera so we could see and she got stuck into mothering her new dolly which we'd sent her!

Christmas Day started off overcast but it was glorious late afternoon so Steve and I headed to St Kilda beach where we had an ice cream and a swim and a little sit on the sand. It was busy but not too over crowded and we were definitely pleased we ventured out.

After the St Kilda jaunt we headed home to make dinner. We had the Aussie traditionak grilled prawns which Steve did with a garlic, chilli and peppercorn butter. Amazing! And then there was a turkey dinner which he made which was also delicious. He is doing a lot of the cooking these days and I am not complaining! He does it so well!

I love the Hall family Christmas photo here. Amelia last year was barely in her Jumparoo and now she's running around, and imitating adults with a cleaning set and a hoover! As well as a pram for her new baby dolls. She's had a lots of excitement with all the family round for Christmas Eve dinner and it was great to be able to Skype them all and listen to the dinner table chit chat and then Christmas Day with Graeme's family.

Today we went to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. The morning was overcast and we were rained on by a couple of passing showers but post lunch the skies cleared and the sun come out full force. Sadly England weren't at full force and it was a very slow game...Nevertheless I enjoyed the padded seat our more expensive "premium" tickets bought us and a little extra space as our neighbouring ticket holders didn't appear. Although the game was slow, the entertainment was still there with a long beer snake and some poor Mexican waving.There was World record attendance of 91,092 which whilst seated in the grounds didn't seem bad especially as queues for beer, food and bathrooms were not long at all but the walk home over the bridge as the bottom right picture shows, proves there were a lot of people; so much so we decided to avoid the direct route of the bridge and wandered through East Melbourne and into the CBD instead.So now we're back home, half packed for our South Australia road trip and had a dinner of leftovers...Next post will be about our exciting trip....whoop whoop!

The countdown to Christmas has been a whirlwind of activity. It's different to the same time in the UK when it was all about shopping and family get togethers and I truly miss that. We've found different ways to while away the time here in Australia.Sadly a lot of it has come down to busy and hectic schedules and deadlines at work. In the last week of work, Steve had a proposal due and I just had such a vast volume of things to get through that we actually didn't see each other for about 72 hours until Friday (the day it all finished) came. Steve would leave at 6:30am and come home post 10pm and I would be at work from about 8:30am until sometimes 7 and one night 9pm so we've definitely been putting in the hours.I've squeezed in some shopping and found that one Saturday afternoon was more than sufficient to buy a few gifts and to buy myself a lovely Coach handbag (reduced!). Back home it was a lot more complicated. It was also strange carrying shopping bags and looking at Christmas decorations whilst the sun shone brightly.One thing that has stayed the same is the fact that we don't really do the Christmas decorations thing. I'd love to but it always seemed a bit of a waste as we were never around over the Christmas period as we'd spend time with family and away from home. And similarly here in Australia we tend to take a holiday this year's trip starts on 27th. So our only Christmas decoration is a string of cards that we've received. Thank you for thinking of us friends and family. We love the cards and they are our only nod to Christmas decor wise so they're very important to us!

I talk about us being busy with work but it's not just work. We've been playing hard too! We had a great Tuesday evening at Morris Jones where we enjoyed a 4 course dinner with 4 matching cocktails. Certainly interesting - pine needle martini matched with octopus anyone? There was one stand out course though and that was a sage butter infused bourbon, spiked with balsamic and then topped with a sourdough foam that accompanied a much more traditional roast pork belly, black pudding and apple main course. The cocktail had an almost fruit like tang like tamarind but from the balsamic and then the yeasty bread like foam top was toasty like bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar and then rich fatty pork with apple and that balsamic hit....amazing...like nothing I've ever tasted before.What other things have we done? There have been various catch ups - dinners, lunches with different crew and friends as well as the EnergyAustralia Christmas Party (Gatsby glamour was the theme) and Steve had his PwC many parties the main one being a Bond themed party at the National Gallery Victoria. Parties mean much needed recovery time too which is basically unproductive sofa and napping time.

The EnergyAustralia Christmas party was a heap of fun starting with many of my colleagues coming to our apartment for drinks and to get changed. There was glamour, live music, deejay, 20s props all in the name of fun...

Other fun...a baby shower in St Kilda for Lorna on another sunny day but this time with a cool breeze. I think I'm acclimatising though as the sight of sunbathers lying out there in a bikini surprised me...it wasn't that warm....I think I may have even worn a cardigan at one point! 20 degrees and I fleetingly consider closed shoes and long sleeves...

ASo work finished on Friday. Steve and I had a great seafood dinner at Claypots with Stef and just enjoyed some downtime.

On Saturday we had a market day and had Marty and Kirsty round for dinner as it had been ages since we'd seen them and lucky for us we all happened to be free and available! They travel a lot and we do a lot so getting together usually takes a bit of pre planning but not this time! It also gave me an excuse to add to the string of Christmas cards and dig out some baubles and a red candle for the table centrepiece!The last few times we've been at home on Christmas Day we've eaten out. Given this year we'd actually be home for consecutive days before going on holiday we decided to stay in and cook up a storm so after having guests on Saturday we made another market trip on Sunday to cover the rest of the holiday season and stocked up the fridge. Yes we could have been super organised and done it all on the Saturday trip but that was too much like hard work. Plus we had limited fridge space....Staying in and cooking and watching TV and being on the computer and reading and other lazy pastimes like that mean that we've thrown the body clocks out the window. That's what Christmas is about for me and has been since I was a child though. I love staying up late into the early hours and then having a lie in. Steve usually likes to stick to his Cinderella turning in time of midnight though and has often left me to play alone or with my family when we're in UK and then he's up early in the morning and I stay in bed in the morning. However I think I'm turning him into a night owl....On Sunday he was keen to stay up late...

As well as having throwing routine out to pasture, I also love being able to do whatever I want when I want including late night cheese snacking...Certainly not something that is allowed the rest of the year!

As mentioned earlier, we've enjoyed spending the initial holiday time cooking for friends and our selves. In the is slide show you can see we've been busy. We have made:

Beef carpaccio with a Pecorino and caper dressing

Steve's speciality - Parmesan and black olive crusted rack of lamb

Roasties and green beans with pine nuts

Onion gratin

Salted caramel and chocolate pot

Mussels with Mr. Wong's home made XO sauce

Spatchcock stuffed with pistachios and cranberries wrapped in prosciutto with baked apple and bacon, roasties and asparagus with a little confit onion

Roast duck breast with a strawberry salsa and a pearl barley and mushroom risotto

Bacon and egg pie / quiche

Caramel and chocolate shortbread

And all this is before the big day!!! Speaking of the big day...I wonder what Amelia makes of all of this. I know she loves the decorations and the lights and I'm sure she'll love all the attention and new toys...She's already raiding the gifts and got caught red handed snoopin

As I reflect back on the final week in November and what lies ahead as we hurtle towards Christmas, yes it's about dining and wining and friendships and sunshine. Not a bad combination really! Oh and I've had a chest infection over the last two weeks but am coming through the other side now. Steve and I enjoyed a banquet at Spice Temple last week and the menu was focused on Cantonese cuisine which I guess is where most Chinese food that has existed in the Western world has been most heavily influenced by. Spice Temple usually concentrates on the likes of Sichuan and Hunan cuisine which is heavily spiced so it was interesting to try the more subtle but apparently more technically challenging Cantonese dishes.

On Saturday we had a mooch around the Windsor / South Yarra area. We had breakfast in Windsor and walked the length of Chapel Street. Steve discovered a new beer haunt, we enjoyed lunch and we also finally got round to seeing what all the fuss was about at Zumbo.Adriano Zumbo for those that don't know and probably most Brits as they don't get Aussie TV, is an amazing Australian patissier, baker, chef and confectioner. He's been on Aussie Masterchef and really is quite the creative genius. Everything in the display cabinets looked amazing and it was so hard to choose.We came home with the classic but very good lemon meringue and the less classic Non Che Nudo Ka Cake described as flourless chocolate cake, vanilla macaron, almond milk gel, olive oil gel and bergamot mousse. It was amazing. More Zumbo in our lives please!

Saturday evening was spent at a cocktail class at 1806 with Shern and Jon, Stacey and Andy (ie The Timberts and The Demerys). Both couples are back off to UK for Christmas so it was good to catch up before despatching them off to a cold, wintry, welcome from Blighty! We learnt about cocktails and a basic recipe, mixing them and shaking them and I was pretty pleased with my espresso martini!

And today is day 1 of December. 1st day of Summer and the temperature hit 30 degrees. The Christmas decorations are up as you can see in this photo taken at lunch today but unlike back home, everyone is out side enjoying the sunshine and no fairy lights or candlelight necessary given the day is still bright!It was strange shopping at the supermarket today with Christmas music in the background...

We caught up with Rachel and Tim today before their trip home and also with the lovely Chantal. Lunch and drinks gfun and this was a great start to the Summer and I can imagine there will be many more sessions like this.Over in UK, Amelia has been entertaining us with her games of peekaboo in the doorway and dancing now that she has discovered headphones for the first time. She also enjoys household chores as you can tell from the photos and loves her great grandma very much too. We love receiving the videos and photos and I love sharing them with others.

Authors

We are Steve and Minda and we've been given the opportunity to move to Melbourne for two years. We arrived November 2010 and passed that two year milestone and are now Australian citizens! This is a blog of our experiences as we move to this new country, settle in and have fun!